Shorty #13: Consultants You Can't Specialize in 19 Different Areas

Warren Rants on Consultants

Transcript

Announcer 0:04

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Warren 0:19

Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the workday by saying everything you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren. And this is Feathers. Alrighty, we got a shorty episode today, but before we get too deep into the shorty episode, want to thank our original jaded HR rock star Halley. If you want to support us, all the links are in the show notes. You can be a Patreon, buy us a beer, but support us through BuzzSprout, our hosting provider. Lots of opportunities there. But also connect with us, leave us a review. We'd uh love to do all that. So for the shorty episode, I got fired up a little bit earlier going through LinkedIn, and I'll be without using names, I'll be pretty specific. Someone I used to work with, and I know I've known for a while, they are an HR consultant, but they've actually left the company they were consulting for and are out doing their own consulting company now. And I'm seeing their posts all over LinkedIn. And A, they're I I I don't know what I don't know exactly what it really irritates me that someone like that would try and enter the world as a consultant. As I work with them, I know them. Maybe it's been a few years and maybe they've just grown exponentially since I last actually worked with them. But I I think that consulting, I I see these LinkedIn consultants, I look at their their resume, and I see you know you've got five years of experience. Wow. You know, I what can I learn? Unless it was like five years of in-depth, very specific knowledge. I don't think you're going to be able to help me. I want someone who knows more than me. I do I want somebody who I can look at their resume and their resume gives me confidence, but I'm sorry if you have like five or less years of experience and now you're an HR consultant, that's not giving me a lot of confidence and and and things like that. So I'm but like I said, I saw this one individual that I used to work with and they're doing consulting. And I it just I don't know, irritates me. Another thing about HR consulting that that irks my nerves is or any sort of consulting. I think a lot of people use it to hide gaps in their resume. Oh, I was a consultant in this time, and uh, you know, okay, what was your revenue? How did I I I want to go down that road sometimes as I really feel that that's a a resume gap hider on some people. But I I actually went in my contacts list because I actually do have people I like that are consultants, and I was looking, I was trying to find one that would be an appropriate guest on the show, and I didn't quite find one that I felt would a do it, maybe they would have done it if I just didn't ask, but that would do it and would probably be able to give us the banter we need for a podcast, essentially. But in in the last episode about mental health, you talked about feathers, so many managers want to do a one-size-fits-all approach to management. I think a lot of consultants they get their thing. Hey, I did this, now I can apply it everywhere, and they try their one size fits all uh approach. Uh, and and in the consulting world, there is no such cookie cutter.

Feathers 3:37

I thought that's just what consultants did. It seems like it. I thought they were just one size, I thought they were just one size fits all, which means I want to be a consultant one day. I just want to have one thing.

Warren 3:52

Pay me a boatload of money, I'll I'll tell I'll consult with you. But and then another another LinkedIn person, HR consultant. I was this just going down the LinkedIn rabbit hole one day. I see their specialty areas and they they specialize in DEI compensation, you name it, benefits, they specialize in it. And I'm like, no, you don't specialize. If you've got 15 specialties, you don't specialize in anything. You know, I just that employee relations and and document preparation and and things like that. If you do, if if that's what you're listing as 15 specialty areas, you don't specialize. You know, if you're a DEI consultant, be the best damn DEI consultant. If you're a benefit strategy person, then hey, give us all you got with that. But oh, I do benefits, I do employee relations, and I do document preparation and employee counseling, and yeah, okay. So that's how that turns me off.

Feathers 4:52

So you're actually helping me with my argument of one size fits all. You're like, don't specialize in 19 things, specialize in one thing. So that's what I said. Consultants just did one thing.

Warren 5:02

Well, there's I if if someone if there was a consultant that I had a service that I needed from them, and they say, I do what it is that you need, and it's my special area. I do not do whatever recruiting, staffing strategies, whatever, total compensation management, whatever it is that is the bud's word right now that they do. If you tell me that, I'm gonna get a lot, you're gonna get a lot more out of me. But another thing I remember with a previous company, higher up, hired a HR consultant. And one of the things, even at that stage in my career that sort of irritated me, is they're trying to tell us what the problem is, like after being here for 45 minutes. You don't know any, you don't know enough to say what the problem is at 45 minutes. And now you've got this divine strategy. Now you're coming with your cookie cutter strategy that uh you want to push on us. And that I don't think that consult lasted too long, but before they were seen, but it was just whatever. And but that brings me to the next point of consultants. They don't always appreciate or understand the uniqueness of your problems. If you have uh you might have a compensation problem, compensation management problem, but what worked at company A might not work at company B. And if you don't try and find out the nuances between it, you're not gonna, it's not gonna be successful. I mean, I can throw out all sorts of fancy terms. I can sound, believe it or not, I can sound kind of intelligent when I want to once in a while. But uh, I can I can do that. So I don't know. That that's uh that's sort of my rant on consult. Have have you ever worked with a company that's brought in an HR?

Feathers 6:50

Um I've been some places where we've brought in some compensation specialists to kind of help us on like comp philosophy, but they weren't, I mean, they were very singular focused, and it was usually smaller project-based. Um I know like in the DEI area that's becoming more common, but I don't I don't actively work on our DNI function uh right now, so I don't know too much about that.

Warren 7:18

Yeah, but that's exactly it. If you hire the compensation person to help you get a strategic compensation plan, then that's exactly what I want to consult for. And I don't want them, you know, maybe they have some suggestions, but I don't want them, oh, I can also do this for you, I can do that for you. I I worked with one consultant that I really liked, and I I I didn't invite to the podcast, I don't think they'd participate, but I worked with them once upon a time, and they brought a lot to the table, and they stayed in their lane, and they I don't know if I had to I wish I could you know formulate exactly what they did to win me over and why I like them for the most part. Later, I started getting oh, you worked with our you know, you did this type of consulting with this comp with our co-worker here, but I specialize in this. Would you like to talk? No, no, I don't, I don't want to talk to you. I just want to I I got what I needed out of that. But and and everybody wants to be a HR consultant. And hey, if the money's good and you can uh gig it out, and you know, especially people who are doing it independently, they're good to go with their own thing, it it's definitely eat what you kill. And I don't have the the tolerance for that. I lost that tolerance for you know commission based or you know, eat what you kill a long, long time ago. But you know, it it that's what you can do, and some people are really, really good at it, but I just don't I don't see it and then I I won't name names. There's a a podcast by some HR consultants that I just listened to their podcast, and they're they're trying to be a legit HR podcast, not a shitty, cynical couple of old guys talking about HR. They're trying to be legit, and I listened to it and I'm like, everything they say, no shit, Sherlock. I haven't I haven't learned and the thing is I continue to listen, but it's like I haven't learned anything from you today. I you know, maybe I found it interesting, but or piqued my interest, but I haven't learned anything. And it I think the purpose of their podcast is to drive business to their company, and yeah, I haven't done it yet. And I've listened to, I don't know, a lot of their episodes, anyhow. So, anyhow, that's consultants. That's all I had to say. I don't know. A more of a rant, I guess, than anything else.

Feathers 9:32

If you specialize in 19 things, you actually specialize in nothing.

Warren 9:36

Yes. Yes, that's our our best practice.

Feathers 9:40

But it's my profound statement. Yeah, it's my profound statement.

Warren 9:43

What if I specialize in 21 things though?

Feathers 9:49

It's starting to sound better, actually.

Warren 9:53

Yeah. Yeah, I just oh, oh, like that. Oh, I I don't remember that episode. I'll have to find the show notes from it. But once upon a time, I got an email. I was in a group email chat, and this person put in their email signature like uh a hundred things. They were HR director and this and that, but it also included was licensed professional real estate person and licensed real estate appraiser and all all these other things not related to HR were all in their signature. They I I could maybe there wasn't a hundred, but there were probably at least 20. I go back in our archives and find I have the notes. I I only took a screenshot of that person's signature, but it was just crazy how much crap they had in their signature. But they were proud of themselves, so good for them. But uh so our best practices.

Feathers 10:42

I definitely know I de I definitely know people like that. Yeah.

Warren 10:45

Yes. Our our best practice is don't specialize in too many damn things. And there's no uh the voice artist is Andrew Culpa, there's no real theme music today, so because it's a shorty, please be sure to read the show notes, support us on Patreon or other places, buy us a beer. We really want to take this show to the next level, and we're getting there. So thank you for your continued support, and we will see you next week. Until then, I'm Warren. And this is Feathers. And we're helping you survive HR1 What the Fuck Moment at a time.